Originally Posted by
Olivia
Has she even been dead 12 hours and already people are talking about her?
Fashion designer Kate Spade's suicide was 'not unexpected' according to her family who say she struggled for years with debilitating mental illness - but was too scared to seek help in case it hurt her brand.
Spade, 55, hanged herself with a scarf in her Park Avenue home on Tuesday morning, leaving a heartbreaking suicide note addressed to her teenage daughter, telling her: 'I have always loved you'.
Now the designer's older sister Reta Saffo has opened up about her sister's battle with mental illness, how she fixated on beloved comic actor Robin Williams' hanging suicide in August 2014, and how she's refused to seek medical treatment, concerned it could damage the Spade brand.
'Sometimes you simply cannot SAVE people from themselves!' Saffo, of Santa Fe, New Mexico, told The Kansas City Star.
Saffo, 57, said she and Kate's husband Andy Spade had urged her on multiple occasions to go for treatment, including to the same treatment program where Catherine Zeta-Jones went for her successful bipolar treatment, but she'd always 'chickened out' at the last moment.
'We'd get sooo close to packing her bags, but ? in the end, the 'image' of her brand (happy-go-lucky Kate Spade) was more important for her to keep up. She was definitely worried about what people would say if they found out.'
Saffo said after numerous attempts to try and help her sister, she 'finally let go.' But not before her sister hinted at her suicide plan.
'One of the last things she said to me was, 'Reta, I know you hate funerals and don't attend them, but for me would you PLEASE come to MINE, at least. Please!' I know she perhaps had a plan, but she insisted she did not.'